What's Wrong
With Eating Too Full?
The more you eat, the sooner you die. The lesser you eat,
the longer you live.
This is what Dr. Lee always says in his health talk. He also
mentions, "Eating too full causes all sort of health problems
such as hypertension, diabetes, stroke, etc.”
Why eating too full is so harmful to your health? What can
you do about it?
Mice Experiment
To see how eating habit affects life span, a professor from
University of Texas did an experiment on mice.
For the first group of 100 mice, he let them eat without any
restriction, just like a buffet meal. The second group was fed
only 60% full. And the third group was given food without
restriction too. But this time, he reduced protein content to
half. After 2½ years, guess how many mice were still alive
out of 100?
 1st Group (eat without restriction) - only 13 mice was alive.
 2nd Group (eat 60% full) - 97 mice was still alive. Only 3
mice died.
 3rd Group (eat without restriction with protein cut half) 50 mice still alive.
What can we learn from these results?
Firstly, eating too full is really harmful to your body.
Secondly, eat 60% full if you want to live longer and
healthier. Thirdly, taking too much protein is harmful to
your body too. We don't need so much protein after all.
Overworking Body
Imagine having a small family car. Instead of using it for
short travel between home and office, you use it for long
distance travel between different cities every day. Instead
of using it 1 hour a day, you use it for 10 hours a day.
Instead of driving at 70 km/h, you always speed up to 170
km/h, hitting engine's red line.
Can you estimate your car life span? Do you expect having
various problems with your car after a short time? Driving
your car at high speed for a long time is like always eating
too full. You force your body to always work at its red line.
Do you know digestion is the most demanding work for
your body? Think about the organs involved such as your
mouth, stomach, liver, pancreas, duodenum and intestine.
Think about the length of digestive tract from your mouth
to intestine.
By eating too full, your body zaps up much of your energy
for digestion. Otherwise, this energy may be used for
other purpose such as enhancing your immune system.
Do you realize you become very tired easily after a big
meal? That is the sign of your body working hard to
digest all the food you take in.
If you eat an extra bowl of noodle, your pancreas has to
produce extra insulin hormone to process the extra
carbohydrates you take.
Your liver, stomach and intestine also have to produce extra
enzymes to digest and process specific nutrients from that
bowl of noodle.
Therefore the more you eat, the harder your body has to
work to process it. Of course, we must eat to survive. But
we don't have to eat that much!
If you drive your car slowly and handle it gently, you can
use it for a long time. But if you always floor the
accelerator and drive like a rally driver, you know the
consequence on your car life span.
Side Effect Of Eating
Your car engine burns fuel to move your car and bring you
to anywhere you like to go. As a result, the engine produces
exhaust smoke which is toxic. It must be dispersed out from
your car.
Similarly, your body cell burns nutrient for energy to survive.
In the process, it produces free radicals. Since free radical is
toxic to your body, it has to be neutralized and expelled.
"Just metabolizing food especially fatty and carbohydraterich fare causes the body to produce free radicals, which
attack cells and can promote the development of chronic
conditions including heart disease, diabetes and cancer,"
says Ronald L. Prior, Ph.D.
Of course, your body can control free radicals in small
quantity. But the more you eat the more free radicals
your body produces. Without adequate control, these
free radicals easily attack your body cells and eventually
cause all sort of diseases.
Good Eating Habit
After knowing the harmful effect of eating too full, what's
your choice? Do you want to live longer, just like the
second group mice in the experiment? Or do you want to
risk ending your life earlier, just like the first group mice? If
you wish to live longer, here are some tips you can follow:
1. Always eat until 70% full. Do not exceed 80% full. You
may want to stop eating when you feel slightly full.
2. Avoid having buffet style meal which makes it harder to
control how much you eat. Instead, prepare the food
you want to eat in a plate. After finishing it, don't add
anymore food.
3. Leaving the dining table earlier may prevent you from
picking some extra food to eat.
4. It is always a good idea to prepare lesser food in the
first place. Some people are afraid of having not
enough food for everyone. Actually, lesser food is
beneficial for everyone.
In a restaurant, order in small amount first. You can
always add in some extra order if necessary. But if you
can get by with the original smaller order, that's great.
Remember this: You have higher chance of over-eating
if you serve more food on the table. You have better
chance of not over-eating if you serve less food.
5. Avoid stuffing your fridge with ice cream, chocolate or
other dessert. You cannot eat what you do not have.
6. When someone prepares a big plate of food for you, look
at it first. Ask yourself, "Do I want to stuff it all into my
stomach?“
If your answer is no, just put aside some food to another
empty plate first. After finishing your food, look back at
the extra food on that new plate. Say to yourself, "Phew!
Luckily I didn't stuff that portion into my stomach.“
7. When you get too hungry before your meal time, just
take some fruit instead of heavy meal.
The tendency to over-eat is very high for people these
days who want value for their money at buffet tables.
Eat less and stay healthy. So remember to eat only
70% full if you want to stay healthy.
Lead a Healthy life... it's your first asset to enjoy all
other assets!